JJ Anderson

Hi all, can’t believe it’s been almost a year since my last post. Hopefully, you all will hear more from me in the upcoming year.

Over this past year, I have been extremely busy, both in my personal/professional life and with this book. I worked with that editor I mentioned in my last post, and the experience was amazing. I learned so much, and I really appreciated her mentorship and resources. That said, working with her took around 5 months total (which included in-depth reviews, video calls, and multiple revisions and reviews of chapter outlines). It also took another 4 months for me to make those changes based on our discussions. There was a lot of waiting, rewriting, and stepping back from the project, which gave me the chance to look at it with fresh eyes.

With everything going on in my professional life, this was a lot of work to do in my free time. And even still, I’m not quite finished yet!

Right now, I am working with a few friends and acquaintances who are providing their thoughts on the book before I start submitting to agents again. Because December and early January are awful times to submit queries due to the holidays, I plan to take their feedback, make any needed (minor) changes, and then start submitting again.

Depending on when my readers finish and what their feedback is, that will put me submitting sometime in mid-January to early-February. Although it’s been four years since I embarked on this writing journey, it appears I will still have to work on the virtue of patience in the meantime. I am sure there will be a lot more waiting even after that, as it can take a long time for literary agents to get back to you and to secure a deal with an author (assuming one even gets one).

Worst-case scenario, I have a few smaller indie presses I have been looking at, which I am hoping will give my story a chance, even if no one else does. But even if I end up having to self-publish, I am happy with where I am as a writer after these experiences. Maybe that’s more than enough.

In the meantime, what you can do to help with this project

If you’re interested in this project and would like to read my manuscript and provide feedback, do let me know! I will only be doing this exchange with people I know and trust, however, so keep that in mind. If you want to get a taste for whether the manuscript it to your preferences, check out my writing excerpts tab on this website. I’ve updated it with the new prologue.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

JJ Anderson